Beryllium experiment started! In the first week, we fired 13 shots, starting June 4. As anticipated, first shot vaporized thin beryllium oxide layer, creating dust. Good news is that the dust is steadily being cleared off, with very little evidence of additional erosion, in contrast to heavy early erosion with tungsten. We started to get measurable fusion on third shot and fusion yield has gone up ten-fold since then. However, not close to a record yet.

The clean-up has to proceed further to get good symmetry. We’re not sure how fast it will go, so patience, focus fusion fans! Other good news is that our new ceramic switches are functioning well, as are three new instruments: two Langmuir probes for the ion beam and an electron beam Rogowski coil.